Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy (HBOT) is a medical procedure approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration, USA) where a patient is placed inside a pressurized (hyperbaric) chamber, breathing air with an oxygen concentration of 21 to 100 percent. According to the FDA, this therapy is prescribed for medical conditions such as decompression sickness in divers, pressure ulcers, radiation necrosis, acute carbon monoxide poisoning, acute gas embolism, gas gangrene, refractory osteomyelitis, acute traumatic ischemia, acute cyanide intoxication and acute cerebral edema, among others. Furthermore, there are many medical reports showing the positive results of this therapy applied in patients suffering from critical conditions such as thermal burns, bone grafts, acute poisoning by carbon tetrachloride, fracture healing, multiple sclerosis, sickle-cell disease, autism and numerous other conditions.
Some of the benefits of HBOT include: Increasing oxygen concentration in all body tissues, stimulation of new blood vessels in areas with poor blood circulation, and improvement of blood flow to areas with arterial blockage. It also causes rebound arterial dilation at the end of the therapy, resulting in an increase in diameter of the blood vessels. This leads to an improvement of blood flow to the organs of the entire body (perfusion), and stimulates an increase in the production of superoxide dismutase (SOD), a major antioxidant and free radical scavenger (internally produced by the body). It also helps in the treatment of body infections by improving the performance of white blood cells among many other positive physiological mechanisms of the human body.
Traditionally, a hyperbaric chamber is cylindrically shaped, equipped with a rounded door in one of its side ends in which the patient can access in upright position or laid down its back. It is placed in a large room due to its big size and there is a small hatch where patients access the chamber, this design seems to be dictated by the necessity of minimizing the hatch (door) area in order to minimize the force applied to it when the chamber is pressurized. The traditional hyperbaric chamber must be placed in a large room (even larger if the patient enters in the upright position), this requirement is valid not only to accommodate the chamber but also to accommodate the rest of the equipment required for its operation. In these cases, owners need to reserve a large area or room in their facilities to accommodate the chamber, reducing the possibilities for small hospitals or clinics to install one, because of its high cost and the space required.
The inconveniences mentioned before, added to the high cost of hyperbaric oxygenation therapy in clinics and hospitals, have limited the therapy's range of treatment to only a few facilities that have used them for medical conditions (where effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been proven successful) and have limited the reach of studies into the use of HBOT in other medical conditions where it may have a potential benefit to health.
Since the common HBOT therapy is daily treatments for one or two hours over one or more weeks, its represents for many patients a major challenge, not only because of the therapy's high cost, but also because of transportation expenses resulting from getting to one of these facilities that are located in hospitals and clinics not always near the patient's house.
Several patents have been submitted for hyperbaric chambers; these are made of rigid materials such as steel, or soft materials such as plasticized fiber cloth. Other characteristics that these chambers display are their spacious size or “assembly required” design. Currently there are no hyperbaric chambers made of soft materials that make an internal pressure above 1.3 ATA possible, and there is no hyperbaric chamber made of rigid materials designed to support 3.0 ATA or more, with a mechanism that allows the chamber to oscillate from a vertical to a horizontal position, is compact enough to be installed in a small clinic or at home and can be operated either by the technician, the user and/or a remote 3rd party.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,904 by Hannum James E and also U.S. Pat. No. 7,556,040 B2 by Allan Dolph Meyer, Norman Michael Berry and James Martin Davidson show a rigid material hyperbaric chamber with its entrance designed to insert the patient backwards in a sitting position. It allows no possibility of being reclined at any angle. Furthermore, none of the gate designs in these patents show a bolted door.
A similar situation occurs with U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,678 granted to Rusten and Gamow in which they present a chamber that is made of soft materials, here the time required to assemble the hyperbaric chamber and set it up for a therapy session is very long and inconvenient. In addition, this version of the chamber is too big as to be accommodated in a regular size room. (Due to its composition, this type of soft material chamber offers limited benefits for hyperbaric oxygenation therapy being that it is not possible to pressurize them fully to the required levels.)
Another patent in a similar situation is No. 2008/0006272 A1 by Peter A. Lewis; this model of folding chamber is made of soft materials and lacks a rigid, bolted gate, neither does it offer any possibility of inclination for the patient. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,078 by David E. Harvey and Charles Wright features a closing mechanism, but in this design the gate lacks rebar bolts inserted in the internal face of the edge of the chamber's entrance, and there is practically no movement that allows the pressurized air to aid in sealing the gate through its displacement towards the internal face of the chamber's entrance.
In FIGS. 3A, 3B, 3C, 5, and 9 of this patent it is not clear how the external surface of the gate No. 62b moves against the internal surface of the chamber No. 26b because of the end of the bolt No. 98 or because of the air pressure, being that the gate's movement in this direction is blocked at all times by the lower track of the gate No. 138.
The invention being presented creates the possibility of HBOT being accessible to many people due to the following reasons:                1.—Ridgid Materials—this capsule can endure several times the atmospheric pressure.        2.—Oscillating Mechanism—this invention solves the problem of the space that is needed to install and operate this type of machine; it can be placed anywhere without compromising big spaces.        3.—Resource and time savings for the patients because by having it at hand they have the possibility of attending therapy sessions as frequently and for as long as they wish (always under a medical regimen).        4—It offers the possibility of starting HBOT immediately without any assembly of parts such as is required with hyperbaric chambers made of soft materials.        5.—The oscillating mechanism allows the patient to choose positions starting at any angle between vertical and horizontal, including inverted positions.        